The Protectors

I Hate Fairies and Trolls

“What the-?” I stopped suddenly as I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. A tiny hand waved at me a few feet above the ground. “A fairy?!” I exclaimed in disbelief. Silently, the small, sparkling figure motioned to me to come over. Wondering what she wanted, I complied.

When we were out of sight, she turned to me and said quickly, “We need your help! A troll keeps catching us fairies and puttingus in jars! Despite our complaints, he won’t the ones he’s captured so far go! Soon they’ll die, and maybe, if you don’t stop him, all the fairies in this area will be dead!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, trying to catch up. “What?”

The fairy apparently didn’t hear me, continuing overly happily, “Oh, I’m so glad I found you! I was worried we were doomed! But then I heard that there was a new Protector, and I found you!”

As the fairy continued to talk in her sickeningly sweet and joyful voice, flitting around excitedly, I started to mutter to myself, “Why, oh why, did I ever read that book? Why did I have to tell that vampire I am a Protector? Why? First I piss off a vampire and now all the creatures of the night or whatever know to make my job even harder. And now… there’s fairies… And I have to rescue them from what was it again?”

“A troll,” the fairy offered brightly.

“A troll…”

“Yeah, you know like ‘Fee, fie, foe, fum,’” the fairy said excitedly.

“Isn’t that a giant?” I asked, not really caring although the overexcited headache didn’t seem to pick up on that.

“Oh yeah! I always get trolls and giants mixed. They’re both so big!”

I stopped paying attention as she didn’t stop talking about the similarites and differences of trolls and giants. After a minute or so, I finally interrupted her, “So can you show me where I need to go?”

Unphased by my impatience and curtness, she replied readily, “Yep!” Eagerly, she zipped ahead, and I followed after the light blue speck, wondering what I had just gotten myself into.
A thought occurred to me suddenly while I was following her. “How come people aren’t staring at you? I mean, you’re a sparkly fairy flying around in the middle of the day out in the open.”

Doing a loop-de-loop, she flew back to me, grinning as she replied, “They see me as a butterfly. We fairies can create small illusions on ourselves that we allow only certain people to see through. So right now it looks like either you’re talking to yourself or to a butterfly!” She giggled.

I glared at her, though the smile stayed firmly plastered on her face. After another second or so, she returned to flying a few feet in front of me, leading me on.

“What’s your name?” I asked after a little while.

“Tina, Tina Rosepetal,” she replied in an almost sing-song voice, circling around my head. When I didn’t say anything else, she left me again.

Finally, she slowed to a halt, and I followed suit. We were in the middle of a pretty nice neighborhood, and I was beginning to feel stupid.

Excitedly, Tina pointed to one of the houses. “That’s where the trolls live!” she exclaimed. “It’s the boy who’s been catching us!”

It surprised me somewhat that trolls would be living in such a nice neighborhood. They obviously couldn’t be the type of people we usually think of when we say the word. Surely someone with the I.Q. of a log wouldn’t be able to afford such a nice house.
An encouraging look from Tina was all I needed to walk over to the front door and knock on it. I waited a few seconds before it was answered by a slightly less than average-looking woman answered it. She was slightly big-boned, but her face was pleasant and kind.

“Hello, what can I do for you?” she asked nicely.

“Um, I heard that your son has been catching fairies and putting them in jars,” I said uncertainly. The woman seemed too nice and well-mannered to be a troll.

The woman didn’t seem offended or surprised. “And who might you be, exactly?” she questioned in her kind tone.

“Billie Joe Armstrong, the Protector of this area,” I replied with more certainty.

“Oh, I see. Could you hold on a second?” When I nodded, she took a step back and turned around. “Timothy Andrew Howe! Get down here this instant!” she shouted into the house. There was thudding as someone came downstairs and walked over to her. “Timothy, have you been catching fairies?” his mother asked him sternly.

“Yeah…” came the reply in a thick voice.

“What have I told you about fairies?”

“But they’re sparkly!” I heard the boy whine.

“Just because they’re sparkly doesn’t mean you can keep them for your own entertainment. Now release them immediately and apologize to them.”

“Okay…”

Timothy’s mom turned back around to face me as I heard the troll go off to do what his mother had told him to do. “Tell the fairies I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know he had been catching them. I told him not to, but he’s still too young to know right from wrong when it comes to interacting with other magical creatures. Especially sparkly ones like fairies. But someday I hope he grows up to be like his father who’s a surgeon.”

I couldn’t believe it. This had all been so nice and easy, so rainbow and sunshiney. Trolls weren’t mean or that stupid, or at least the grown-up ones weren’t. Tina was so annoyingly happy. And all I had had to do was talk to a troll’s mom, and now it was already a happy ending. I almost preferred the vampires to this.

Mechanically I forced myself to say, “Thank you for all of your help. I have to go now. Bye.” I turned around and saw a winking Tina giving me the thumbs up and barely got myself to walk over to her.

“You did it!” she said as soon as I got over there.

“Yeah. It was so hard…” I said sarcastically. “Why did you need me to do that when all you needed to do was talk to the mom?”

“Because… trolls scare us. We never had too good of a history with them, if you go way back.” She sounded prepared to launch in a long story about the history of fairies and trolls.

“Oh, and how come the troll could see what you were?” I asked quickly.

“Trolls are one of the few beings who can see through illusions,” Tina explained. “Probably because of their simple-mindedness…”

“Right…” I didn’t bother to point out the fact that Timothy’s dad was a surgeon. “Oh, can I ask you a favor?” I added, hoping I wouldn’t regret it.

“Sure!”

“I already told one of my best friends about my job, but I still need to tell the other, and I wanted to have something to show him as proof that people like you and stuff do exist so he won’t think I’m crazy. So, can I please introduce you to him?”

“Yeah! It sounds like fun!” she consented.

“Well, we might as well do it now,” I told her.

“Okay.” This time she followed me as I led the way.

* * *

“Tré, I need to tell you something,” I started.

“Okay… What?” he asked.

“You know vampires, fairies, and trolls and stuff?” When he nodded, I continued, “They exist. And I’m this person called a Protector who’s supposed to protect the balance between us humans and said magical creatures.”

Tré stared at me for a moment. I could tell he thought I was crazy. “What have you been smoking?”

Ignoring his question I said, “Since I knew you wouldn’t believe me, I brought someone along to show you.” Tina flew out from behind my back, revealing her true self to the drummer. “Tré, Tina. Tina, Tré.”

“Whoah…” Tré breathed.